Away From the Sun
by CereuleanBlue
Summary: Sequel to Once Bitten, Twice Shy.  Bella's special abilities attract some unwanted attention.  Her unconscious decision could affect the path of her life forever.  Bella X Edward, AU
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer. I'm just messing around killing brain cells.

A/N: This story is a sequel to Once Bitten, Twice Shy. If you haven't read it, you might be a little bit behind. Hope you enjoy it.

-x-x-x-

"And now again I've found myself  
>So far down, away from the sun<br>That shines to light the way for me"

From _Away From the Sun_ by 3 Doors Down

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Jane was certain that the French vampire who had sent her on this fool's errand had been lying to ingratiate himself to Aro, but it wasn't her place to question the decisions that he and his companions made, no matter how much she might have disagreed. The sunlight that filtered through the trees glinted off the crimson of her eyes like a warning light. Not that there was any living thing left in the area to warn. The forest around her was unaccustomedly silent, no birds stirred in the trees, not even an insect disturbed the perfect silence with a sound or movement. The only thing that dared make its presence known was the breeze blowing through the trees above her head, as though it were the only thing not scared for its life around her.

She waited patiently in the edge of the trees on the Cullen's property - far enough from the house that they shouldn't be able to detect her presence and downwind to be sure her scent would blow in the opposite direction from the house.

No one was home at the moment, but she expected them to be very soon. She had timed her presence for when they should all be arriving home from school. Her shoulders convulsed slightly with laughter at the thought of them all attending school, making the pretence at being a normal suburban family when they were all so much more than that.

Jane couldn't imagine putting herself through the daily torture of attending algebra and history along with a bunch of mortal children, their blood tempting her every second of the day. The idea of it made the venom pool in her mouth as she dreamed of draining an entire class of youths one by one - their blood rich and potent with the life that thrummed through their bodies. She was almost so distracted by her imaginings that she didn't notice when the silver Volvo pulled down the driveway towards the garage at the rear of the house.

When she noticed that the passenger seat held an unfamiliar face, she smiled. This must be the one she was looking for. Jane would have recognized any of the Cullen's at once. She'd been sent on several occasions to keep an eye on them for the Volturi. They hadn't grown to be one of the largest covens on the planet unnoticed, and the Volturi wanted to make sure they hadn't had any ideas about using their influence. Until now, they'd seemed quite the cute little family, but something dangerous was amongst their midst if the stories were true.

Her heart fell as she watched Edward exit the rear of the house with what appeared to be a normal human girl in tow. There was nothing threatening about her appearance, nothing out of the ordinary, but the wind carried a strange scent towards Jane's nostrils. She breathed it in, and it reminded her of poison, something entirely foreign.

Jane's body tensed, as though prepared for attack, even though there was no way either of them could detect her presence at this distance. She watched carefully, attentive for any sign of something she could report back to her masters. They would be pleased with her, when she informed them that the tale spun by Laurent had been true.

The pair on the back lawn were joined by a third; she recognized Jasper at once. Carlisle had been kind enough to bring he and Alice to Italy to check in when they had joined his little family. His scars were rather disconcerting, but she fought the urge to betray her presence by any movement.

The three of them stood talking for a few minutes before they began to arrange themselves into a familiar pattern on the grass. She recognized the stances from her own combat training as a newborn vampire. They were teaching the girl to defend herself. How adorable! She couldn't wait to see how inept she must be. It was almost laughable, a human girl against a 150 year old vampire.

Jane watched agape as the attack began and Bella stood her ground, not giving an inch when Jasper drove into her like a freight train. In a matter of moments, the small girl had him pinned to the ground. She released him, and he stood, dusting the fragments of grass and soil from his clothes and preparing to attack her from another angle.

The sun chose just that moment to make its presence known in the clearing, shining through a hole in a passing cloud for just a moment. It caught Bella in its path for a second, more than long enough for Jane's sensitive eyes to make out the fine lines of the bite marks that lined nearly every inch of her exposed skin. The faint glimmer they gave off was unmistakable.

Jane backed away slowly, putting more distance between herself and this unknown creature. She didn't know how she could have taken the girl for human when she was obviously so much more, but she was certain that mistake could be the last one that she or some other vampire would ever make.

-x-x-x-

A/N: I know it was short. Consider it a sort of prologue.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer; the rest of it is just me trying to keep myself from getting too bored.

**A/N: Well, I know it's been a few years since I did anything to this story, but some new reviews got thing knocking around in my head, so I'm here, trying to make an attempt at starting this up again. Feel free to let me know if it totally sucks. So… Here goes nothing.**

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"It's down to this. I've got to make this life make sense. Can anyone tell what I've done?"

-3 Doors Down, _Away From the Sun_

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BPOV

The last few weeks had gone by in a blur. It seemed like the shortest summer break that Bella had ever experienced in her life. She normally had long, lazy summer days with nothing before her other than stretching out with one of her favorite books to occupy her time, but this summer had been quite different. Days had melted into weeks, and weeks melted into months until the sun began to sink into the horizon at an earlier hour each night almost unnoticed.

She and Jasper had worked on every fighting tactic he could come up with, and she'd picked it all up quickly. Now, there was no way he could surprise her, nothing he could do to overpower her. She took him down every time he tried.

Bella could feel the changes that the venom coursing through her veins wrought in her every day. The most recent development was an almost complete and total lack of sleep. There were times when she caught a quick nap, but for the most part she was wide awake for 24 hours a day. It made school easier, since she had a lot more free time to get her work done, but she was growing bored with spending the night in her room reading books or talking to Edward when he could come and sit with her. She was slowly growing more bold and taking the chance of getting caught sneaking out at night into the woods to spend the dark hours at the Cullens' house.

Now, school was looming in the not too distant future, the following morning, as a matter of fact, and Bella sat on the light colored leather couch in the now familiar living room, studying the contours of her shoes and the way the light and shadows they cast played across the floor as if they held the answers to the universe.

_How am I going to go back to life as a normal teenager, homework and books and dances and lunches and term papers? _

She scrubbed a hand over her eyes, threading it into her hair to brush it from her forehead, still so lost in thought that she didn't hear anyone approach. The hand on her shoulder sent her jumping off the couch to a crouch, poised and ready for an attack when it caught her so unaware.

"Whoa, Bella. It's just me…" _Don't rip my head off please. _

She could hear the laughter in her head and the voice was growing more familiar to her ears by the day, but the pattern of the thoughts was nervous, not quite sure what to expect from her. She supposed she wasn't quite sure what to expect from herself, come to think of it. She blew her breath out in one long, slow exhale and straightened herself up when her eyes finally registered who was standing there.

"Jasper, I.." She stammered for a moment, tugging at her shirt to straighten it up before she found the words she needed. Her eyes darted from his face to the floor then back up again. "Sorry, I was distracted."

Jasper's eyes narrowed and studied her expression carefully, the corner of his lip curling up into a half smile that was his attempt at being reassuring. "You're worried, Bella. You're projecting that loud and clear. Want to talk about it?"

Bella just threw up her hands, letting them fall limply at her sides and pulling her lower lip between her teeth, at a loss for words . Her eyes met Jasper's, trying to let him know without words that she didn't know what to say, and he moved over to opposite side of the couch, careful to keep a normal speed to place a hand on her shoulder.

"Or you don't have to say anything at all, you can just listen if you want." His hand was only slightly colder than her own skin, but she could feel the waves of calm coming off him. He knew all too well how volatile she could be, she gathered that from his thoughts, but there was something else there. He was worried for her, and Bella's heart wrenched in her chest to know that she'd projected her feelings as loudly as she had.

She turned and sank down onto the couch with a sigh as the cushions gave way around her, sinking into the softness for a moment before patting the seat next to her and looking up at Jasper. "Edward's gone hunting, too far away for me to hear him, so I just kind of lost myself for a while there, Jazz." Her eyes were apologetic, trying some way to make him understand that she hadn't meant to let him feel her pain and worry.

Jasper took her hand as he sat next to her, turning to face her with topaz eyes focused on her own before he spoke, "Darlin', stop apologizing," and in the flash of the moment their hands were connected, he allowed the memories of all those emotions he'd picked up from his own family pass through his thoughts, and she saw them all – the love, the hurt, the anger, the anguish, the passions and antipathies of a hundred and fifty years. His smile spread across his cheeks further before he spoke again.

"So you see, a few first day of school jitters are nothing, but I felt like you needed someone to talk to," Jasper's eyes found her own again, and he released her hand. Just wanted to know you're not the only one who has had to pretend to be just like everyone else when you knew you were anything but."

Bella froze in place as a memory played itself out behind the cover of Jasper's honey-colored irises. The combination of the vision her own mind presented and the emotions of the day that rolled across the connection between them made it the most realistic vision she had ever experienced, and she sat transfixed as it seemed to manifest itself around her.

_The living room was gone, replaced by the familiar sight of the Forks High Campus, replete with students milling around in their accustomed groups before classes began, but suddenly their attention was diverted by an unfamiliar car pulling into the lot. Bella can see the Cullens striding across the cracked, black surface of the asphalt with expressions like they were born here, all except for one. Jasper brought up the rear of the group. Alice almost had to pull him along behind her towards the scattering of red brick buildings. _

_He wasn't young, but the total assault on his senses of being surrounded by hundreds of beating hearts, the combined rhythms thundering like some kind of twisted symphony of drums in his ears. It was more than he could bear after abstaining for weeks and months from the one thing that he craved more than anything else on earth, and here he was now surrounded by it. It was more cruel than putting a drug addict in a room full of heroin and leaving him to his own devices. _

_Bella could almost taste the venom she knew pooled in Jasper's mouth when one of the braver souls strayed close to the newcomers, the scent of her blood on the breeze hitting him like a tidal wave. He held his breath in an attempt to cut off the scent from his lungs and regain some kind of rational control over his brain, letting the tiny girl attached to his arm pull him along in her wake as he fought to keep himself restrained, until being able to put one foot in front of the other became his sole purpose in life. If he could focus on that one simple act and let the rest of the world escape from his notice then he could get through the day. _

_He trusted the tiny hand whose fingers laced through his own with his life, and when she told him he could make it then he had no other choice than to believe her. Her faith was the thing that drove him through the rest of the day and kept him sane, because there was nothing that he would have done to disappoint the trust that little hand held._

As the apparition faded from around the pair of them, Bella managed a smile when she looked up at Jasper again, reaching to place a cool hand over the cold one that lay on the couch between them. "You're a lot stronger than I'll ever have to be, Jazz, but I'll make it right?" Her eyes were hopeful, but the doubt behind them still lingered.

"You'll make it." _He has just as much faith in you. We all do. _

She managed an actual smile when she heard that thought. The only reason she was still here and trying this was Edward. He had been the one thing in the past few months that had been able to bring a smile to her face in the face of everything that she was up against, and much like Jasper, she wanted to keep that faith alive, because she was fairly certain that no one else, including herself believed in her.

Her body was changing a little more every day, becoming less and less human and more and more vampire, save for the cravings for human blood. It was something else that left her salivating and fighting the urges to tear everything around her to shreds, the scent of a vampire on the breeze, and yet, here she had surrounded herself with them by choice. Her instincts grew stronger by the day, until there were times they were simply overwhelming.

Those were the days she wandered alone in the woods around the Cullens' home or behind her own, breathing great lungfuls of the damp forest air until she could clear her senses and come back to something controllable, something fit to be in the presence of humans or vampires. But school, that was going to be an entirely different challenge. There was really going to be no escape when she had those moments, and it was only going to be through the power of her will that she would be able to make it through a week without signaling the differences between herself to the entire student population. Eyes the color of blood weren't something she was going to be able to hide for very long if she lost it.

With a deep sigh, Bella stood up from the couch. The edges of the sky were becoming tinged with the pale blue that signaled the arrival of the sun. She bit her lip, forcing an awkward smile before she took a step back. "Well, I have to get going before Charlie wakes up and get ready for school. See you guys later?"

Jasper nodded, and she could almost imagine him tipping his hat if he'd been wearing one. "Take care, Bella."

Without another word, Bella turned on heel and left the room and the house behind in a blur, sneaking up the side of the house and onto the roof just below her window to scramble inside, sliding the sash closed behind her. Her attention turned to the closet in front of her, pulling a new pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt from the hangers within, reluctant that she would have to cover her arms once again. She'd grown used to the freedom the summer had provided, allowing her to be more herself than she'd been in months, but now, she felt like she was going back into hiding.

She pulled the shirt and jeans on, tossing the clothes they replaced into the laundry basket at the foot of her bed just in time for a sharp knock at the door.

"Bella?" Her father's voice rang out from the other side, laced with uncertainty at the prospect of invading a teenaged girl's room at this time of the morning.

"Yeah, dad?" She tried to sound exasperated, but in reality, she held in a laugh at her dad's quiet trepidation.

"You all ready for school?" If Charlie could hold this conversation through a closed door then that would be perfectly fine by him, but Bella walked over to the wooden door, twisting the knob and opening it to reveal herself, dressed in the new clothes he'd paid for, but Alice had taken her to pick out two weeks ago.

"Oh," he looked surprised for a moment, but recovered quickly. "Well, alright then. You need a ride or would you rather drive yourself?" Charlie looked at her expectantly.

"It's fine dad. I'll take myself. You just get to work, alright?" Bella painted a real smile on her face this time, giving her dad a quick hug that left him grinning in the hall from the unforeseen contact.

"Ok. You have a good day at school, Bells. See you at dinner." He walked down the stairs, chuckling to himself, still pleasantly surprised from the unaccustomed hug Bella had given him to begin his day, leaving her behind, hands shaking to pick up her backpack and follow him down to the main level of the house with shaking hands.

She muttered to herself, "Here goes nothing," grabbing her keys from the hook by the door and heading out into the gray morning alone.

-x-x-x-

**A/N: Well, there it is. The first thing I've written in what seems like approximately 700 years. Let me know how I did and I'll get to work on the next part of it for you as soon as I can. **


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